The present invention relates to systems for remotely controlling one or more instruments from a single terminal. More specifically, the invention relates to the means by which the terminal designates the operations to be performed by the controlled instruments.
In conventional systems for remotely controlling one or more instruments, the terminal has a predetermined set of command codes it can transmit to the instruments, and each command code designates a specific operation to be performed by the instrument to which it is transmitted. In such control systems, the terminal generally displays to a human user a list of the instruments connected to the terminal and descriptive names of the different operations each instrument can be commanded to perform. The user selects an instrument and an operation by depressing appropriate keys on the terminal, and the terminal generates the appropriate command code which directs the selected instrument to perform the selected operation.
One disadvantage of such conventional control systems is that the terminal often requires hardware or software modifications in order to add new instruments to the system. For example, if the control system is designed to include a group of existing or planned instruments, the system control terminal usually is built or programmed with a selection of operations including only those operations performable by the existing or planned instruments. If a new instrument having a different repertoire of operations is developed, adding the new instrument to the system requires that the terminal be modified or reprogrammed so that descriptive names of the new instrument's operations are included in the list displayed to the user and so that the terminal will generate the correct command code when the user selects an operation.